Hello and welcome to our AS-level Media blog! Thank you for taking the time to look around!
The best way to navigate around our blog is to use the labels that can be found on the right hand side of the page. When you get to the bottom of the page, please click the 'older posts' button as unfortunately we could not fit all of our posts on one page.
Under the 'Research and Planning' label, you will find evidence of all the research, planning and development work we did as a group during the pre-production, production and post-production stages of our project.
In order to see exactly what each candidate contributed to this process, we have also included individual contribution labels names for each group member. All research, planning and development posts contributed to by the named candidate will appear when you click that label.
Each member of the group has also completed their own evaluation, although we have collaborated to produce some content. You can access our responses to the evaluation questions under the individually named Evaluation labels.
Our finished film opening sequence is at the top of the blog, and each candidate has posted their preliminary task video sequence as part of their answer to question seven of the evaluation.
You can also filter through our posts by labels or date and there is a blog archive if you want to look through chronologically.
You will also find a link to the class film blog which contains links to the other group blogs from our school.
Once again, thank you very much for taking the time to look around our blog. We really hope you enjoy looking at our work!
From,
Matt Romo (candidate number 1660), Ellie Brackpool (Candidate number 0100), Georgie Thoupos (Candidate number 0835) and Maisie MacGregor (Candidate number 0506)
Monday 7 April 2014
Friday 4 April 2014
Closing Post
We have
finished all of our coursework so this blog is now closed!
Feel free to keep browsing, but we will not be posting any more.
Thanks
Matt, Ellie, Georgie and Maisie.
Feel free to keep browsing, but we will not be posting any more.
Thanks
Matt, Ellie, Georgie and Maisie.
Thursday 3 April 2014
1. In what ways does your media product use, develop or challenge forms and conventions of real media products?
The title of our film is 'Consequences'. It is a British drama film focusing on the protagonist 'Dan' and the struggles he faces being a teenage boy in London. The other character introduced in our film opening is Dan's girlfriend 'Lucy'.
In order to produce a successful product, we had to research into the drama genre for the four concepts of film production; genre, narrative, form and style.
Genre
Our film is a British drama, mainly focusing on teenagers.
Here are some films of similar genre:
We used these inspirations in order to find out more about the forms and conventions of our chosen genre, and then chose to focus on specific conventions based on them.
Conventions of similar films:
Form and Style
We wanted our film's appearance to be of a similar style to that of the TV drama 'Skins' and British film 'This Is England'.
The intended effect was to make our film opening as realistic and relatable as possible while satisfying the audience's expectations of quality as well as forms and conventions.
We did this through the use of:
Narrative Structure
Often, films conform with Todorov's theory of narrative structure:
In order to produce a successful product, we had to research into the drama genre for the four concepts of film production; genre, narrative, form and style.
Genre
Our film is a British drama, mainly focusing on teenagers.
Here are some films of similar genre:
 |
| Kidulthood |
 |
| Attack The Block |
 |
| This is England |
Conventions of similar films:
- Urban British setting
- Male protagonist
- Relationship between male and female
- Protagonist caught up in disruption
- Themes of trouble/crime
- Realistic appearance (lighting, mise-en-scene)
Form and Style
We wanted our film's appearance to be of a similar style to that of the TV drama 'Skins' and British film 'This Is England'.
The intended effect was to make our film opening as realistic and relatable as possible while satisfying the audience's expectations of quality as well as forms and conventions.
We did this through the use of:
- varying shot types:
- diegetic sounds eg. footsteps running, knocking on door
- natural exterior lighting:
- plain simple titles; plain white fading in and out:
 |
| This Is England titles vs. Consequences titles |
 |
| Consequences running sequence |
 |
| Trainspotting running sequ |
The content of our opening
was supposed to be shot in the style of the British drama film Trainspotting; using the same sense of pace, movement and action through the running sequence.
was supposed to be shot in the style of the British drama film Trainspotting; using the same sense of pace, movement and action through the running sequence.
Narrative Structure
Often, films conform with Todorov's theory of narrative structure:
However, our film will challenge this theory by beginning with a flash-forward of the disruption, before returning to the equilibrium that would come chronologically first.
This is similar to the way that 'Battle: Los Angeles' begins by throwing the audience into the action leaving them asking various questions about how and why this sequence happened. This creates intrigue and interest which is what we intend to do with our opening sequence.
In order to create a build-up of tension, leaving questions unanswered, we used Barthe's theory of enigma codes. We started the film with the disruption of Dan running away, leaving the audience to question who he is, what he's done and where he's running. We continue to leave questions unanswered, leaving the opening on a cliff-hanger in order to engage and interest the audience.
This is similar to the way that 'Battle: Los Angeles' begins by throwing the audience into the action leaving them asking various questions about how and why this sequence happened. This creates intrigue and interest which is what we intend to do with our opening sequence.
In order to create a build-up of tension, leaving questions unanswered, we used Barthe's theory of enigma codes. We started the film with the disruption of Dan running away, leaving the audience to question who he is, what he's done and where he's running. We continue to leave questions unanswered, leaving the opening on a cliff-hanger in order to engage and interest the audience.
Wednesday 2 April 2014
2. How does your media product represent particular social groups?
In our film opening we have focused of the representation of gender, and of that, age.
The following Prezi explains how we have chosen to represent our two main characters, Dan and Lucy.
This Voki is a self-characterisation of the protagonist Dan:
We chose to make our protagonist a conventional teenage male in this way in order to make him a relatable character for our target audience while making him realistic and believable, conventional of the genre.
As well creating representations of individual characters, we wanted to represent British youth as a whole. Rather than representing our characters in an entirely negative way, for example involved in drugs and partying like Skins, or drug-dealing and gun crime like Kidulthood, we wanted to create an entirely realistic representation of British youth. Therefore, our film will have a broad appeal within the 16-24 market as people from different backgrounds will relate. This representation does have some negative factors such as the crime Dan is involved in, however it is supposed to show that teenagers can get involved in these issues without intending to. Our intention is for our film to create a better understanding of British youth rather than a criticism.
One of the main factors we focused on was relationships. We wanted to present young relationships in a realistic way, showing not only how important they can be to teenagers, but also the negative impact they can have when there are problems.
The following Prezi explains how we have chosen to represent our two main characters, Dan and Lucy.
This Voki is a self-characterisation of the protagonist Dan:
We chose to make our protagonist a conventional teenage male in this way in order to make him a relatable character for our target audience while making him realistic and believable, conventional of the genre.
As well creating representations of individual characters, we wanted to represent British youth as a whole. Rather than representing our characters in an entirely negative way, for example involved in drugs and partying like Skins, or drug-dealing and gun crime like Kidulthood, we wanted to create an entirely realistic representation of British youth. Therefore, our film will have a broad appeal within the 16-24 market as people from different backgrounds will relate. This representation does have some negative factors such as the crime Dan is involved in, however it is supposed to show that teenagers can get involved in these issues without intending to. Our intention is for our film to create a better understanding of British youth rather than a criticism.
One of the main factors we focused on was relationships. We wanted to present young relationships in a realistic way, showing not only how important they can be to teenagers, but also the negative impact they can have when there are problems.
 | |
| Jay & Claire's relationship in Kidulthood |
 |
| Positive side of Freddie & Effy's relationship in Skins |
 |
| Negative side of Freddie & Effy's relationship in skins |
 |
| Lucy and Dan clearly care about each other (Consequences) |
 | ||||||||||
| However, Dan's problems have a huge impact on Lucy and this causes tension in their relationship |
Tuesday 1 April 2014
3. What kind of media institution might distribute your media product and why?
Due to the fact that it is a low budget British independent movie, our film would be a co-production between production and distribution.
Production
Our production company is called GEMM Productions.
GEMM Productions is a British independent production company aimed at 16-24 year old male and females as they fulfill a large proportion of the cinema market. We aim to produce films with more challenging and interesting themes than those produced by big-budget studios, focusing on drama with possibilities of comedy or thriller. Our Production company is similar to Film4 which has co-produced many British films including Attack The Block, Submarine, The Inbetweeners Movie and This Is England.
Financing
Our film would be financed by the BFI Film Fund who 'work to discover and develop new talent and to support the production of a wide range of films that will enrich British film culture and define Britain and its storytellers in the 21st century, for the benefit of audiences at home and abroad'. Therefore, we think due to our film's indie British style and content, we would qualify for funding.
Distribution
We researched various studios and looked at their involvement in the distribution of films.
Here is a mood-board of possible distributors for our film:
StudioCanal is is a French-based production and distribution company that owns the third-largest film library in the world, therefore are incredibly successful. Our film would probably be distributed by the smaller StudioCanal owned distribution company StudioCanal UK (previously named Optimum Releasing). This is because it has successfully distributed various British drama films similar to ours, for example Attack The Block, This Is England and Submarine.
Exhibition
If our film was distributed by StudioCanal UK it is likely to be shown in the cinema. Our target audience of 16-24 year olds are amongst the most prominent cinema goers in the UK, making a theatrical release crucial to the success of our film (see table in Production). However, due to the fact that its a fairly low-budget independent movie we feel that it would have most success initially being shown in independent cinemas in order to appeal to our core audience. Some examples of these cinemas are:
Our film would be shown in 2D as it is low-budget film and the appearance, due to the genre and style, would not benefit sufficiently from the costs of showing it in 3D. In addition, our audience would not expect an independent British drama film to be shown in 3D.
After the success of the cinema, we feel that our film has the potential be shown on Television. It is most likely to be shown on Film4 or Channel4 as other independent films have succesfully been exhibited on these channels:
Due to the increase in revenue from film on television, we feel that showing our film on television would be highly beneficial to us. Overall, theatrical and television exhibition has had the highest proportion of revenue over the last few years implying that these are the two best platforms for exhibiting a film, as shown in this graph from the BFI statistical Yearbook 2013:
Marketing
Our film would be marketed to our national audience through a simplistic marketing campaign, taking advantage of below-the-line advertising. Due to the majority of our audience being in the urban youth demographic, our marketing would most effectively take place in cities. Similar to the way in which StudioCanal distributed Submarine, we would create one simple poster that would become a memorable image for our film. This would be seen at bus stops and train stations around the main cities in the UK, for example on the London underground. Due to our low budget as an independent film, the poster would not be seen on a large scale, for example on billboards.
In addition to the poster and similar to Submarine, we would have one main trailer available to view online, posted on the StudioCanal UK Youtube channel. This would be shared on our Facebook page which would be the main hub of our film's marketing, sharing all interviews, reviews and any other promotional opportunities directly to our audience of 16-24 year olds in the UK.
Production
Our production company is called GEMM Productions.
Financing
Our film would be financed by the BFI Film Fund who 'work to discover and develop new talent and to support the production of a wide range of films that will enrich British film culture and define Britain and its storytellers in the 21st century, for the benefit of audiences at home and abroad'. Therefore, we think due to our film's indie British style and content, we would qualify for funding.
Distribution
We researched various studios and looked at their involvement in the distribution of films.
Here is a mood-board of possible distributors for our film:
After having researched distribution companies, we realise that it would be best to use a distribution company that has distributed a number of films with style and content similar to that of ours. In addition, having great involvement in the British independent film industry would be essential.
Therefore, we decided that our film would be distributed by StudioCanal.
StudioCanal is is a French-based production and distribution company that owns the third-largest film library in the world, therefore are incredibly successful. Our film would probably be distributed by the smaller StudioCanal owned distribution company StudioCanal UK (previously named Optimum Releasing). This is because it has successfully distributed various British drama films similar to ours, for example Attack The Block, This Is England and Submarine.
Exhibition
If our film was distributed by StudioCanal UK it is likely to be shown in the cinema. Our target audience of 16-24 year olds are amongst the most prominent cinema goers in the UK, making a theatrical release crucial to the success of our film (see table in Production). However, due to the fact that its a fairly low-budget independent movie we feel that it would have most success initially being shown in independent cinemas in order to appeal to our core audience. Some examples of these cinemas are:
 |
| Hackney Picture House |
 |
| The Phoenix, East Finchley |
 |
| Hyde Park Picture House, Leeds |
If our film was to be a success at these smaller cinemas, we feel that it could be shown in larger cinemas such as Cineworld, Vue and Odeon.
Our film would be shown in 2D as it is low-budget film and the appearance, due to the genre and style, would not benefit sufficiently from the costs of showing it in 3D. In addition, our audience would not expect an independent British drama film to be shown in 3D.
After the success of the cinema, we feel that our film has the potential be shown on Television. It is most likely to be shown on Film4 or Channel4 as other independent films have succesfully been exhibited on these channels:
Our film would be marketed to our national audience through a simplistic marketing campaign, taking advantage of below-the-line advertising. Due to the majority of our audience being in the urban youth demographic, our marketing would most effectively take place in cities. Similar to the way in which StudioCanal distributed Submarine, we would create one simple poster that would become a memorable image for our film. This would be seen at bus stops and train stations around the main cities in the UK, for example on the London underground. Due to our low budget as an independent film, the poster would not be seen on a large scale, for example on billboards.
In addition to the poster and similar to Submarine, we would have one main trailer available to view online, posted on the StudioCanal UK Youtube channel. This would be shared on our Facebook page which would be the main hub of our film's marketing, sharing all interviews, reviews and any other promotional opportunities directly to our audience of 16-24 year olds in the UK.
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